GATEway opens door to growth for bright students

Wriggling worms ... students at Davidson High demonstrate the game they devised for young children in a GATEway exercise. Photo: Steven Siewert

In 1997, Davidson High School's enrolments were falling as parents in the North Shore suburb turned to selective and private education over the local comprehensive.

Its principal, Mark Anderson, in consultation with two staff members, thought a program to stimulate bright children in years 7 and 8 might help.

They set about developing something they called GATEway and Davidson's numbers have risen steadily since.

Davidson's current principal, Chris Bonnor, says GATEway might not be the only cause, but it has been a factor.

"It's not a replacement for good classroom teaching, but a supplement."

About 30 children are involved in GATEway, which runs for 90 minutes after school once a week.

Students nominate themselves, but the course is challenging, committing them to a couple of hours' extra homework a week.

Each term has a theme (at the moment, it's sport), around which the children do activities in disciplines including maths, science and English.

The children have calculated the length of an Olympic sprinter's pace based on video footage; measured their own heartbeats before and after exercise; examined sporting statistics; researched past athletes, and much more.

The day the Herald visited was a "creative/active" day: groups of students were given 30 minutes to invent a game, make any equipment it required from a box of odds and ends, then play the game out in front of everyone.

After furious brainstorming, the results ranged from "wriggling worms" to "crab rugby".

Karen Di Stefano, who helped devise GATEway in 1997 with fellow teacher Jane Ferris, describes the program as "rarefied air for the gifted and talented kids" that enables them to be satisfied intellectually within a comprehensive school.

She thinks the entire school benefits: "The idea of being a comprehensive school is that you do have the very bright and those who struggle academically."

Many of her students could have gone to selective schools, but were deterred by the prospect of travelling for more than an hour every day.

Di Stefano says that GATEway allows those students "to turn that travelling time into learning time".

That was certainly an attraction for Alana Digby of year 9, who, after two years in GATEway, mentors the group, which includes her younger sister, Melissa, in year 7. Both sisters turned down selective school places.

"The fact that Davidson was close to home and had GATEway was much more appealing than having to travel for 40 minutes each way to Manly High," Alana says.

She credits the program with improving her maths and public speaking: "We were doing a lot of work on problem-solving, which helps to balance all your skills.

"Everyone here wants to learn and so it's a really good atmosphere, with people helping each other."